Sherlolly Collaborative Fic: Chapter 1
by listrant
Summary: This is the first chapter of a collaborative fic that a group of people are writing on sherlolly(dot)com. It's Sherlolly (obviously) and the basic concept is that Sherlock, John, and Molly are traveling around the world to solve a case. Each chapter will take place in a different location (somewhere that the author of that chapter is familiar with).
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Liberty

The large aircraft had that kind of quiet noisiness which comes from hushed voices over loudly humming engines as its passengers were boarding. Sherlock threw their bags into the overhead bin and then gestured for John to precede him into the two seat row. John shook his head.

"No. Actually I'm the next row back, behind you," John said, holding out their tickets for Sherlock to examine. Sherlock's brow instantly furrowed, but John only shrugged.

"The flight's not that full. Maybe Mycroft got us each our own row so we'd be more comfortable. If someone comes, we'll ask them to switch," he said, before sliding past Sherlock and into a seat in the next row.

Boarding a plane that large was slow, and they were still sitting at the gate a full 10 minutes later when John looked up from his book at the sound of Sherlock muttering something that sounded like "oh dear lord, I knew it." Molly Hooper was coming down the aisle.

"What's this then, Sherlock?" John asked.

"This, John, is Mycroft's idea of a good joke," Sherlock spat out angrily over his shoulder, just before Molly stopped short in front of him. It occurred to John that she seemed as relieved to see Sherlock as he was annoyed to see her.

"Oh, thank god it's you," Molly gasped and Sherlock's eye brows shot up. Molly immediately became flustered by his cold stare.

"No…I mean…I mean…it was kind of scary...they wouldn't tell me anything. I…here, this must be for you," she stuttered, shoving the legal sized orange envelope she'd been holding into Sherlock's hands. "They said to give it to 'him' when I got on."

"Who said that?" Sherlock asked as he quickly examined the envelope…plain, unmarked…before ripping it open and pulling out a single sheet of paper.

"The men in suits who kidnapped me and brought me here," Molly responded as Sherlock's eyes few over the page.

_No doubt you are surprised by your second traveling companion. Now, prepare to be flabbergasted, dear brother. You can't send Miss Hooper away. You need her. While I may be able to grant you access to almost any government facility in this country, my influence, sadly, does not extend across the pond. The Americans were not impressed by tales of your heroism or Dr. Watson's entertaining blog. They insisted that you would be granted access to their morgues and other facilities only if accompanied by someone with actual credentials in the field of post-mortem pathology. It turns out that, in between fetching cups of coffee for you, Dr. Hooper has been busy publishing her research and has, consequently, developed quite the international reputation as an expert in that field. It is her name, not mine, which will open doors for you during your time spent abroad. Without her, you might as well stay home._

_Do have a safe and pleasant trip._

Sherlock sighed and passed the paper over his shoulder to John. "Molly's coming with us."

The aforementioned pathologist glanced down at her ticket.

"Right, well I guess I'm with you then," she said to Sherlock.

"Sit with John," he ordered, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, no. Her ticket says she sits with you. Why should I give up having the row to myself? I'm exhausted from that damn goose chase you led us on last night and you're not even going to sleep anyway. She sits with you. No offense Molly," John added, looking more than a little amused as he finished reading Mycroft's letter.

"Fine," Sherlock ground out, but he made no attempt to move from position in the aisle seat.

"Well? Scoot over then," Molly urged, shifting her weight and glancing back at short line of people who'd accumulated in the aisle behind her during this exchange.

"Nope. Short people on the inside."

"Oh for god's sake, Sherlock!" Molly gasped and called his bluff, boldly crawling right over his lap and wiggling into her seat. John's chuckles drifted from behind them as Molly blushed slightly under Sherlock's shocked glare.

"Well you didn't give me much choice, now did you?" She muttered, while fastening her seat beat and starting to pull her loose hair back into a pony tail.

"Can I see that paper?" She twisted in her seat to ask John. Her two traveling companions responded simultaneously.

"Sure."

"No."

"Don't you think she's got a right to know?" John asked. He slipped the sheet through the space between the window and the Molly's seat, well out of Sherlock's reach. Molly couldn't hide her smile as she read it. By now the plane was pulling out of the gate and beginning to taxi to the runway and further conversation was discouraged, first by the flight attendants and their safety speech and then by the roar of the engines during take-off.

Both the plane and John Watson had been in a fully horizontal position for a good 20 minutes when Sherlock broke the silence.

"Very sexy, right?"

"What?!" Molly's eyes were like saucers.

"Your perfume. It's 'Very Sexy' by Victoria's Secret. Am I right?"

"Uhm…uh…yes," Molly choked out.

"Yes, you're right," she added more clearly after a moment.

"You never wear that at the hospital." His tone was skeptical, almost accusing. Molly sighed slightly.

"Look, it's not for…it's not like that, ok? I had no idea I was coming on this stupid trip. I got dragged out of my flat with no warning. I was already wearing it," Molly paused for a second and then went on. "The reason I never wear anything at the hospital is because, as it turns it out, nothing mixes well with formaldehyde."

They locked eyes for a moment and Sherlock could see the exasperation behind hers.

"Alright…sorry," he muttered the second word so quietly that Molly almost didn't hear it. Sherlock pulled out his laptop switched it on. Molly sensed that he would shut her out as soon as the screen came up, so she hurriedly took a deep breath and asked her question.

"This letter explains why I'm coming, but not why we're going to…New York and then…Indianapolis, Indiana?"

"New York is just a short layover, and Indianapolis is the nearest major airport."

"To?"

"Liberty, Indiana."

"Ok, and…what's there?" Molly pressed, unable to hide her growing annoyance with his bare minimum answers.

"You've read John's blog about Dartmoor? I think he called it something like 'The Hounds of Baskerville'?" Sherlock made it clear, as always, how he felt about John's choice for the title.

Molly bit her lip. "Uhm, yeah I think I read it. The experimental hallucinogenic drug that drove that poor kid crazy."

"Yes, exactly. And project was based in…?"

"Liberty, Indiana?"

"Right."

"But I though the project was shut down in the '80s…and isn't the man who was messing with that drug dead?"

"Yes, he's dead. But now he's not the only one." Sherlock was getting excited despite himself now, Molly could tell. It was impossible for him to hide his enthusiasm for a case. He pulled up a file on his laptop and turned the screen so she could see it. It was a grainy black and white photo of a group of people.

"The five principle scientists and 10 research assistants on Project HOUND. Three of the principles have been dead for years, every indication of natural causes," Sherlock said, pointing them out with his mouse.

"And here's Dr. Franklin, our friend from Baskerville. We know how he met his end. But in the last several months the other people in this photo have begun dropping like flies," Sherlock went on.

"Not natural causes?" Molly grimaced. Sherlock smiled and shook his head.

"Uh uh," he said, biting his lip through the smile.

"You're awful," Molly teased in reaction to his obvious glee.

"I'm honest. You love a good corpse, too. You just don't let on. Otherwise you wouldn't work in the morgue or…help me."

Suddenly they weren't smiling anymore and the eye contact was awkward, uncomfortable, too intimate. For Molly, least. She quickly looked away, at the hands in her lap, out the oval shaped window into the never-ending darkness beyond, anywhere but at him.

"Yeah well, don't tell anyone," she said quietly. A few minutes of silence passed…not total silence of course since the engines and air ventilation systems were faithfully producing white noise and John was slightly snoring in the row behind them. And then of course there was the rustling and murmuring of other passengers.

"So that's why we're going to Liberty? To investigate the murders?" Molly finally asked.

"One of the murders. The team was made up of scientists from all over the world. When the project was shut down, they returned home, like Dr. Franklin. But one of the principle scientists was local and he's still living in the area. Or, I should say, was living because two days ago he was found murdered in his bed at his farm house just outside of town. Liberty was the logical place to start the investigation then, being both the location of the project and the last known location of the murderer, presuming there is one. I can take a look at this guy's body, his house, and whatever's left of the old research facility. I'll decide where to go next based on what we find there."

"So we're chasing a murderer around the world?"

"More or less. Are you tired? You should really sleep now because you may not get a chance later. Here," Sherlock reached underneath his seat, pulling out a blue felt blanket that was stashed there and tossing it in Molly's lap.

"You want me to shut up now," Molly responded as she spread out the blanket. It wasn't a question, but Sherlock answered anyway.

"Yes. Exactly."

"Alright. Fine," Molly shut her eyes and slouched in the chair, leaning her head against the paneling beside the window.

"I know you don't want me on this trip. I don't want to be here either," she murmured sleepily. "I could be back at home in bed instead of scrunched in this chair with this scratchy blanket. Who designed these? They're miserable. You don't care because you're not going to sleep. Don't you ever sleep? What are you a vampire or something-"

"Sleep, Molly," Sherlock barked. Molly let out a "hmph" noise, but her breathing evened out just a few minutes later.

Several hours later, the cabin lights had been turned down and most of the passengers were at least attempting to sleep. John was heading back from a trip to the loo when he came up short at the sight in the row in front of his.

Molly was asleep…with her head on Sherlock's shoulder. More than that she was completely curled up against him; she even had a hand resting on his bicep. Sherlock seemed completely unbothered by Molly's position. He had his laptop out on the tray table in front of him and was staring at it intently, typing occasionally. As John stood watching, Molly moved her head a bit, rubbing her cheek against Sherlock's sport coat and practically nuzzling her nose into his neck. John waited for a reaction, but still, Sherlock did nothing. As John returned to his seat, he attempted to make eye contact with Sherlock, but his eyes remained glued to the screen, whether he was really that caught up in his work or simply avoiding John was unclear. Well he wasn't going to let his friend off that easy. John pulled out his phone and sent a text.

_Wow. When's the wedding? – J. Watson_

John heard Sherlock's phone buzz in his pocket and wondered how he'd manage to get it out without dislodging Molly. Apparently Sherlock was able to do it because John's phone went off a few seconds later.

_Very funny. When she's asleep, she's not talking. I'm not waking her up. –SH_

_She'll wrinkle your suit. – J. Watson _

Sherlock didn't respond. John couldn't resist continuing.

_Just admit it…you kind of like it.- J. Watson_

_Don't be ridiculous. –SH_

_You love it? – J. Watson_

_If I offer you my other shoulder, will you shut up too? –SH_

Sensing Sherlock's growing annoyance, John had the good sense to end the conversation at that point.

When Molly woke up a few minutes later, it was with a start. She jumped slightly and jerked her head up in the same instant. It was a few more seconds before she realized where her hand or that the reason she was slightly warmer on one side of her body than the other was because she was pressed up against Sherlock. She quickly pulled away and scooted over as far as possible in the other direction. Sherlock, who'd been watching all this with a calm curiosity, didn't say anything.

"Oh god…was I…? I was, wasn't I? I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…" Molly partially covered her reddening face with a hand as she spoke.

"It's okay," Sherlock answered flatly.

"No…it's not. It's…this is so awkward…" she went on.

"It's really…it's fine." Sherlock was more insistent this time and Molly was finally able to stop the flow of apologies from her lips. They didn't speak to each other for the rest of the flight and, when they made their connecting flight in New York, Molly sat with John.

* * *

Liberty, Indiana was quintessential small town America. Surrounded by farmland, it was composed of a few crisscrossing streets of two lane road. No sky scrapers, no high rise apartment buildings. Narrow sidewalks separated the street from the one or two story glass fronted brick buildings which ran along both sides of it. Once upon a time they would have been home to the essentials, stores where you could buy groceries, pharmaceuticals, and hardware, but that functionality had long since been filled by the megastore a few miles away. Now what storefronts weren't sitting vacant were occupied by antique furniture stores and glorified gift shops, selling the image of a simple life that didn't really exist anywhere in America anymore.

Farther from the center of town, storefronts gave way to single family houses with screened in porches, which sat a few feet back from the road in the center of small but well-manicured lawns. It was the kind of place that seemed perpetually stuck in the 1950s, so much so that the residents seemed out of place in their modern clothing. The women you expected to be wearing cotton summer dresses, ribboned hats, and white gloves were instead wearing tank tops underneath track suits with words like "juicy" and "cheer" in swirly letters across their backsides.

"There was a top secret government facility _here_?" Molly asked in disbelief as she rolled to stop in front of a traffic light. The other cars in the intersection were rusty pick-up trucks with straw in the back and older low budget cars. As Sherlock had feared, the flashy new sports car they were in stuck out here like a sore thumb.

They'd had to hire a car at the airport for the hour and half drive from Indianapolis to Liberty. Sherlock had asked for something "inconspicuous and ordinary," and the girl at the desk had flirtatiously responded that she "had just the car for him." Apparently the car for him was a shiny, black BMW convertible. Sherlock hadn't been willing to waste the time going back to ask for a switch. There'd been a slight squabble over who should drive, but John insisted it be Molly once she'd revealed that she'd spent a few summers in this country as a teenager, visiting an aunt. Sherlock had begrudgingly agreed.

"Baskerville's also in the middle of nowhere. You really don't want an audience for this kind of research," Sherlock responded.

"Well, where exactly are we supposed to go? I don't see any chain link fence or barbed wire," Molly said.

"Mycroft said we're supposed to meet our CIA contact at the county court house right?" John leaned between Molly and Sherlock's seats to look out the wind shield, the view from the tiny windows in the back being rather limited.

"Yes…just keep going straight. I assume it will be obvious…clearly marked," Sherlock directed.

They quickly came to the corner of a large square plot of land, at the center of which sat a large limestone building. The stone work was intricate and heavily embellished and a clock face showed on all four sides of a pointed tower which rose from the front of the structure. It gave the building the look of a cathedral. This was obviously, both literally and figuratively, the centerpiece of the town.

"Guess we found it," John muttered.

"Where do I park?" Molly bit her lip anxiously. There were a few spots right in front of the building but they were clearly marked as being off limits to the average visitor. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Oh wherever you want. I'm pretty sure the CIA can get us out of a parking ticket."

"You say that, but you're not the one who signed for this car," Molly protested, but she slid into one of the angled spaces anyway.

Sherlock naturally took the lead as the three of them climbed the steps leading up to the large wooden door. The found themselves in an empty, darkened hallway. Dust floated slowly in the beams of light coming through the window.

Suddenly a thin, blonde, glasses clad young man in an ill-fitting navy blue suit burst out of a door a ways down the hallway. He rushed over to them, but darted around Sherlock to extend his hand to Molly.

"Dr. Hooper!" he burst excitedly as Molly returned his enthusiastic hand shake.

"Yes…yes that's me. Uhm…nice to meet you?" Molly responded.

"Oh I'm sorry, I'm Dr. Andrew Warner. I'm post-mortem pathologist as well…and I'm a huge fan. HUGE fan. That article about the variation in gas release in decaying tissue as a variable of temperature was brilliant! So brilliant. I wanted to go see you speak at the global pathology conference in Glasgow last year, but they wouldn't let me off to go. I saw clips on YouTube though and I was fascinated by your theory about the diagnostic benefits of coagulated blood and I hope we'll have time to discuss it further while you're in town."

Molly was beaming, but completely flustered by the man's gushing.

"Wow…thank you! But I'm kind of here with…" Molly gestured vaguely at John and Sherlock.

"Oh yes, forgive my rudeness, Dr. Watson, pleasure to meet you as well," Dr. Warner quickly extended his hand to John.

"Nasty business, army doctoring. But exciting too, I'm sure. Can't imagine why you're interested in all of this, but it's nice to have you aboard."

"Yes…pleasure, thank you," John glanced obviously toward Sherlock.

"Oh and…uhm…" Dr. Warner's well of knowledge about the group seemed to have run dry as he turned to Sherlock.

"Sherlock Holmes, "Sherlock prompted, his voice like ice, clearly furious over having been ignored for so long.

"Ah yes, of course. Mr. Holmes…well, any friend of Dr. Hooper's…"Dr. Warner trailed off as Sherlock ignored his outstretched hand. John snickered at that and Molly blushed a little.

"Can we just get on with it? I assume you're going to take us to-" Sherlock started but the nerdy pathologist cut him off.

"Yes, of course. Right this way." Dr. Warner began to lead the way back toward the door he'd just walked out of.

Molly was waiting for Sherlock to precede her when he turned and gestured, with a flourish, for her to go first.

"Oh no, _Dr. Hooper_, please…" he said sarcastically and John was chuckling again. Molly glared at them both as she walked by.

The room behind the door Dr. Warner led them to was just an ordinary looking conference room, with a long mahogany table lined by rolling leather chairs. But there was an elevator up against one wall. Dr. Warner twisted a key in the lock which obviously served as the call button and a few seconds later the metal doors slid open. Once inside, he place a different key in yet another lock which allowed him to pull back the metal paneling to reveal a set of odd looking buttons. He placed a finger on one of the buttons and it lit up, apparently scanning his finger like a copy machine. There was a happy little beeping sound and Dr. Warner withdrew his finger and closed the panel.

"Oh I see. Hiding in plain sight," Sherlock muttered, as the elevator doors slid closed and they started to go down.

"Yes, that's the idea," Warner replied.

"And you're so confident in this that you protect it only with a few keys and finger prints? Both of those are ridiculously easy to copy…"

"No one's going to attempt to break into somewhere they don't know exists."

"Your staff…they hide it perfectly, then? From everyone? Their spouses and children?...Your wife…does she not wonder why a pathologist works at the court house?"

"My wife? I'm not ma-" Dr. Warner began to answer, but Sherlock cut him off.

"Yes you are. You've taken off your ring, no doubt for the benefit of _Dr. Hooper, _here. There's no tan line, you don't get much sun working several stories underground. No indentation marks either, you were wise enough to remove it hours before we arrived. But the way you've been fidgeting is a dead giveaway. You reach for your ring finger with your thumb and then pull down, as if to twirl it. Obviously a nervous tick you've developed from years of having it on. Probably exacerbated in recent moments by your subconscious guilt over the unfaithful thoughts that Molly has inspired. So yes, you're married. Now tell me, what does your wife know about all of this?"

Dr. Andrew Warner was beet red and unable to make eye contact with anyone. Molly and John looked uncomfortable as well…they were both kind enough to feel sympathy for the man who Sherlock had just dressed down, even when his intentions had been less than innocent.

"She…uh…she thinks I'm a lawyer," Warner finally managed to choke out, as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal yet another nondescript hallway. But this one looked more modern, less period than the one upstairs. How many floors up? It was impossible to tell because the elevator had no indicator lights to label what floor it stopped on.

"OH I get it! THIS is the CIA facility! It's hidden underneath the courthouse!" John suddenly exclaimed. Sherlock gave him a look that said "Really?"

"Yeah, don't feel bad. I was only about 5 seconds ahead of you," Molly assured him.

Warner led them through a maze of fluorescent lit hallways punctuated by heavy metal doors which were labeled only with numbers.

"How long does this go on for?" Molly asked

"Quite a ways. We've got rooms underneath pretty much the entire town."

"But the only entry is in the courthouse?" Sherlock this time.

"That's the main one…there are a few others."

They stopped in front of a room labeled 204.

"And here's my little home away from home…" Warner said as he pushed the door open. What was behind it was more or less an ordinary morgue and lab, not unlike the facilities Molly worked in at St. Bart's. There was a body bag laid out on one of the metal examining tables. Warner passed around a box of latex gloves and unzipped the bag to reveal the body. It was a chubby, older man with all the usual characteristics that came along with that…gray hair, wrinkles…bullet hole on the side of his head.

"Here, he is. I laid him out ahead of time…they told me when to expect you. Alexander Hodgkins. One of the five principle scientists of project hound. They found him like this in his bed a few days ago. He's been retired for more than 10 years, so I never knew him, but I heard he was a great guy."

"He was conducting life-ruining experiments on human beings," John responded with astonishment.

"Yeah, well…apart from that," Warner shrugged.

Molly and John stood back while Sherlock went to work examining the body.

"Don't you want to…?" Warner asked Molly.

"When he's done. You see you've got it wrong. He's not here with me, I'm here with him."

Warner's eyebrows shot up. Molly blushed and started stammering.

"No…I mean I'm not _with him_. I'm just here with him. And John, of course. I mean…I'm not the…"

"Shut up, Molly," Sherlock murmured into the corpse's arm, which he was holding out and carefully appraising.

"Ok. Yes. Shutting up now."

Sherlock finished and Molly and John each took a turn, neither of them finding anything interesting to relate.

"Take us to the room that Project HOUND was conducted in. I assume it's was somewhere in this bunker," Sherlock said.

"Yes, it was. But the room's been completely cleaned out. Not sure what you're looking for, but I doubt you'll find it there."

"Take us anyway."

Another long walk through a maze of corridors brought them to another numbered door. This one said 101. The door wasn't locked and Warner pushed it open and flipped on the light.

The first room they came to looked like the emergency ward of a hospital. Privacy curtains hung from the ceiling and could be pulled around examining tables and hospital beds. There was other medical equipment scattered around them room. At the end of the room they came to another door. This led to what looked like it would have been a lab. There were long flame resistant work benches running the length of the room and a couple of ventilation hoods along one of the walls. There were no chemicals or other pieces of equipment in sight. Sherlock opened a few cabinets, but stopped when they were all empty. On the far wall of this room they came to yet another door. Sherlock pulled open the door, but it was pitch black inside, apparently operating on a different set of switches than the other two rooms. Sherlock felt along the wall on both sides of the door and suddenly the room was flooded in light.

Molly gasped and blindly grasped for the nearest familiar thing, which happened to be Sherlock's arm.

"Shit…" John swore.

This room was a prison. There were six cells, three on each side of the room, made of heavy iron bars running into the bare concrete walls. Within the cells, along the walls, were odd kinds of restraints which resembled straight-jackets, but weren't.

Sherlock started forward, farther into the room, and Molly fingers slid down his arm to his hand, which she latched on to. Sherlock didn't attempt to shake her off, but pulled forward, making it clear that if she was going to hold on to him, she was going to have to follow him.

"Oh god, they didn't…" Molly cried as she moved further into the room, sticking as close to Sherlock's back as possible.

"I don't know what they did in here. I had nothing to do with project," Warner said from the doorway, his tone making it clear he was absolving himself of all guilt.

"Isn't it obvious?" John spat, disgusted.

Sherlock grabbed a few of the cell doors and shook them, but they were all locked. Molly flinched at the miserable sound of clanging metal. Sherlock's eyes darted around the room and Molly and John's followed. Vents. He was looking at the large air vents in the celling and on the wall, running along the floor.

"Of course it's also a gas chamber…the drug's an aerosol," Sherlock explained, unnecessarily. Molly's eyes were welling up with tears.

There was one more thing in the room. At the end of the aisle between the cells there was an old television and VCR on a rolling stand. Sherlock pulled Molly over to it, plugged it in, and pressed eject. The electronics hummed to life, but there was no tape in the VCR and the television screen was just a blank blue. John yanked the power cord back out of the socket.

"For the terror trigger? The stimulus?" John asked Sherlock curiously.

"Yes, presumably. Although I'm sure they tried other things as well. Live animals, weapons, sounds," Sherlock muttered.

"There are bullet holes in the walls and splatters of blood on some of the restraints," he went on.

At those words, Molly lost it and the tears started streaming down her face, though she was shaking with the effort to hold them back.

"How could you do this?!" she yelled at Warner.

"Like I said before, I had nothing to do with this," he responded evenly.

"You work here! And you don't care!"

Sherlock turned and grabbed Molly by both arms to get her attention.

"Molly. Molly! It was over 20 years ago. He was just a kid when this happened. He didn't do this."

"She needs to get out of here," John suggested.

"I know. I'm done anyway."

"Come on, Molly. Let's go. We'll get you out of here," John urged, but Molly didn't move. Her eyes kept drifting over to the metal bars that lined the way back to the exit.

"Molly, let's go," Sherlock commanded firmly, but still she didn't move, she only stood there sobbing, looking terrified.

"She's afraid," John offered.

"I know that," Sherlock snapped back at him.

"Molly. Molly, shut your eyes." Molly did as he asked, but she still didn't move forward when he pulled on her arm.

Sherlock sighed and then wrapped his arms around Molly and pulled her up against his chest. She huddled into him and partially hid her face in his neck. John's mouth fell open and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. Sherlock didn't do things like this. Ever.

"It's alright. It's ok. It's alright…" Sherlock murmured the words over and over.

"We're going to go now, ok?" he asked quietly after a few moments and started edging toward the door. Molly allowed herself to be pulled along in Sherlock's arms and they slowly made their way through the three terrifying rooms and back out into the hallway.

"What about the records from Project Hound? I need to see all the information you have about the project," Sherlock told Warner and John was even more amazed. Sherlock's voice was cold and calculating again, like always when he was on a case, and yet he was still cradling Molly, whose crying had been reduced to sniffling by now, against his chest. The sight of Sherlock holding a woman was so alien, and yet Sherlock was so casual about it.

"All the records from that project were destroyed in the '80s when it was shut down," Warner said mechanically.

"Oh, come on! You don't expect me to believe that!" Sherlock barked. Molly jumped a little at the sound and stepped away from Sherlock, wiping her face.

"Sorry…I'm sorry…I'm fine now," she muttered, avoiding making eye contact with any of the men.

Free of his burden now, Sherlock rounded fully on Warner.

"It's true! A summary of the project was digitized and kept, but my understanding is that you've already seen that information. There's nothing else," Warner rushed to assure him.

"And if there is you either don't know about it won't show it to me. Fine. We're finished here then," Sherlock set off down the hallway, clearly not the least bit unsure about the way out. Nobody spoke as Warner keyed open the elevator doors and escorted them out of the building.

It was late afternoon and the sun was beginning to set as Sherlock, John, and Molly came down the court house steps and climbed back into the car.

"What now?" John asked Sherlock, who was pounding away at the keys on his phone again.

"Back to the airport, Molly," Sherlock directed absently.

"You don't want to go check out the dead guy's house?" John pressed. Molly said nothing as she started the car and backed out. The tears were long gone and her face was composed, but if either of the men had been looking, they might have noticed the air of quiet weariness about her.

"Oh no, he didn't know anything. And they'll have removed any evidence by now. And it doesn't matter; it's much more important that we catch the plane which is leaving in…2 hours," Sherlock answered.

* * *

Ok, that's the first chapter (my part). The next part will be written by somebody else and posted in the fanfiction section of the website's forum. I'll try to update this in some way to let you guys know when they've posted a new chapter. This chapter is posted there as well.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of this fic has been posted by user lilyismilesaway and can be found on her profile. I have also added it to my favorites list and it should be easy to find there since I only have a few favorites. It's also on the Sherlolly website in the fan fiction section.

Wish I could post links on here, but it won't let me.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of this fic has been posted by user T. Z. Townshend and can be found on her profile. I have also added it to my favorites list. As always, it's on the Sherlolly website as well.

Happy Reading!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of this fic has been posted and can be found on **rilakjenya** 's profile and also on my favorites list. The story ID is 9631257. Happy reading!


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